Gaming - Page 157

Modding naturally lends itself as a key benefit of gaming on PC. With the latest Raimi-verse addition to Spider-Man 2 (PC), you can live out your fantasy of dance-pointing down the street - or channeling your symbiote-driven angst - just as you saw it in Spider-Man 3 (2007).

Vader's Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, uploaded by a creator named GuitarthVader, allows players to change Peter's appearance to a selection of different Tobey Maguire face skins from the Sam Raimi trilogy - including his younger appearance from Spider-Man (2002), a slightly older look from Spider-Man 2 (2005), and the infamous Bully Maguire appearance from Spider-Man 3 (2007).

The mod also comes with a range of outfits, including Peter's get-ups from the first two films, the infamous black dance suit, and even his "pizza time" appearance. Mods are also available to enhance the existing Raimi suits and swap in Venom's look from the third movie.

With The Outer Worlds 2 pushing towards its 2025 release window, Obsidian sat down to discuss some of the memorable experiences the game seeks to create. Particularly, drawing parallel to infamous moments from the opening of Fallout New Vegas.

Speaking with IGN, Obsidian's lead systems designer, Kyle Kanig discussed how the combat has been updated to feel more modern, drawing on some familiar titles for inspiration.

However, as an open-world RPG, it's only natural that the studio would draw on its most famous works. Specifically, the weird and wild wasteland of Fallout: New Vegas.

One of the biggest new games on the horizon is id Software's DOOM: The Dark Ages, a prequel to DOOM Eternal (check out our hands-on with the game here) that will once again deliver intense action with cutting-edge visuals. This is id's first game that will require a ray-tracing capable GPU on PC because it uses the technology for both gameplay (enhanced hit and material detection) and Path Tracing or Full Ray Tracing.

It launches on May 15 and is coming to NVIDIA's GeForce NOW cloud gaming platform. Subscribers can play the game on a cloud-based RTX rig via Steam, Battle.net, Xbox, or PC Game Pass. With GeForce NOW offering up to GeForce RTX 4080 levels of performance, gamers will be able to play on a wide range of devices with ray-tracing, DLSS 4's enhanced Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction technologies, Reflex, Frame Generation, and even G-Sync.

DOOM: The Dark Ages joins 20 other PC games joining the GeForce NOW library in May 2025, including the following 10 dropping this week.

Overwatch 2's new Stadium game mode has been a huge success, so much so that it's the most played game mode so far, beating out Competitive and Quick Play modes, with developer Blizzard rolling out a huge Stadium-packed roadmap. Check it out:

There were 2.3 million matches played across 7.8 million hours of Stadium during its launch week, which is twice the number of the prior most popular game mode's launch week -- which was OW Classic when it was added to Overwatch 2 -- where in its first week, 900 billion in Stadium cash was collectively earned. On top of that, 206 million items were chosen by players during rounds.

Since the new Stadium game mode has been so popular, Blizzard has published an article explaining the development history, with director Aaron Keller writing a very personal story of how Stadium came to be. Keller writes: "Stadium emerged as an idea before Overwatch 2 launched. In fact, before it was presented to the team, one of my kids created the first pitch document with a sample level and presented it to me! Stadium has come a long way since then, but I always think of my son when playing".

Xbox has expanded significantly and is now making more money in Q3 than ever before--Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gives updates on Xbox's Q3 performance.

Xbox's Q3'25 period was the best-ever third quarter in the history of the brand. Gaming generated $5.721 billion in the Q3 period from Jan - Mar 2025, driven by content, software, subscriptions and services, which made up 94% of total revenues. Hardware was down for the fifth consecutive quarter in a row.

Naturally, Microsoft was eager to expand on these results to investors. While we didn't get integral details like operating profits or even an update on Xbox Game Pass subscribers, Nadella did confirm some high-profile targets including a staggering 500 million monthly active user count across all platforms and geographies, with cloud also hitting 150 million hours streamed. PC Game Pass spending is also up +45%, no-doubt sparking the $5.4 billion content & services results, and Microsoft also took notice that Xbox dominated the PlayStation Store's pre-order charts at the very end of Q3.

Bethesda Game Studios has always fostered mod creation throughout the decades, and 2025 is no different, Oblivion Remastered or not: the current lead of Bethesda's paid mods Creation Club has praised the Skyblivion team for their total-conversion creation.

Oblivion Remastered recently released and Bethesda is celebrating with a new videos and contentabout Elder Scrolls, Oblivion, and the studio's history with the game. A new dev spotlight video highlighted Dan Lee, an art lead who worked on numerous BGS projects including landscaping the world art throughout the original Oblivion. Dan is also the lead on Bethesda's Creation Club programs, so he's in close connection with the more professional mod-makers who are able to sell their content for real money in the Creation Club store.

In the interview, Lee said he was looking forward to the Skyblivion mod: "Even though I worked on Oblivion Remastered, I'm still excited for Skyblivion. I think what they're doing is very special, and I am excited to see their interpretation of what we've done in the past. I think it's a great year for Oblivion fans."

Epic just announced a major new business update aimed at attracting developers to the Epic Games Store.

Today, Epic dropped two big news updates: The first is that devs releasing their games on the Epic Store won't have to pay any revenue share fees on the first $1 million earned, per app, per year. After that, the previously announced 88-12 split kicks in (88% to developers, 12% to Epic).

The second update is something called Epic Webshops. Devs can use these digital browser-based shops to sell in-game items, DLC, and content at a better rate than they'd otherwise have on Android or iOS. This basically means that gamers would be able to buy microtransactions outside of the app itself--click a button that opens up a web browser, and then you'd buy the content that way instead of directly within the dedicated game app.

Oblivion Remastered, while being a complete visual overhaul of the original game, still retains much of the original game's charm, released in 2006. Included in that old charm are glitches, exploits, and a character voice by Bethesda's own Todd Howard.

That character can be found in Oblivion Remastered, and if you interact with it in the right way enough times it will profess its love for you with the voice of Howard. The character Howard voices isn't roaming around the world and requires you to enter the following command into the console. Here's how to do it.

After performing those steps, you will be transported to a small house. This house was used by developers to test various characters/items in an isolated environment before they were placed into the wider world. Within the room, you will find a character called Alban Corinis who is wearing a full set of Elven armor. Speaking to Corinis will trigger the following voice line, which isn't in Howard's voice: "I knew one day someone with unyielding virtue would heed my words and speed my release. You risked much to perform such a selfless act."

UPDATE, July 2023, 2025: Microsoft today confirmed that new games released in Holiday 2025 will not be raised to $80, and will maintain their $70 price point.

While Microsoft just reported the lowest quarterly hardware revenues of the Xbox Series generation, the company has now announced plans to increase prices even further.

Today, Microsoft confirmed that it is raising the prices of Xbox consoles, accessories, and games in a response to the continued volatility of the US and worldwide economies. The price increases are worldwide and go into effect today for everything except video games--the new $80 price for first-party Xbox games goes into effect this holiday.

Half-Life 3 is reportedly being play tested religiously right now according to the latest leaks, with Valve reportedly considering a summer reveal and winter release of Half-Life 3... yeah, you read that right, and April Fools Day was a month ago now.

In his recent Ask Me Anything video on YouTube discussing Half-Life 3 aka HLX, Valve insider Tyler McVicker talked about all things Half-Life 3 and that the game is "being play tested so religiously and so widely that there are individuals that will just talk and I personally have a policy of avoiding any story related questions or information wherever possible".

McVicker says that Half-Life 3 will NOT be a VR game like Half-Life: Alyx, and that the game is fully playable from beginning to end, with its content and game mechanics pretty much locked in at this point in time. The development team behind Half-Life 3 over at Valve are laser-focused on optimization and polishing, with the leaker teasing that we could see Valve announce Half-Life 3 in the summer, and release it in the winter.

Gaming monitors come in all different sizes and speeds, with some designed for a more general gamer, and others, such as Acer's recently announced Nitro XV240 F6, being designed for a specific type of gamer.

The Nitro XV240 F6 is a gaming monitor designed for speed, with its trade-off being in resolution. Acer explains the new gaming monitor is a 1920 x 1080p "UltraSpeed" display that features an insanely fast 600Hz refresh rate, which is 10 times the typical rate of a monitor (60Hz), and a little less than three times the 240Hz QD-OLED gaming monitor I'm using to write this post. As for other specifications, the Nitro XV240 F6 is a 24-inch TN LCD panel that sports a 250-nit brightness, HDR400 certification, a pair of 2-watt speakers, and zero USB ports.

The Nitro XV240 F6 is rocking a 0.1ms (GtG) response time, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, 100x100 VESA wall mounting support, and DCI-P3 90% color gamut. As for connectivity, the Nitro XV250 F6 features 1x HDMI and 1x DisplayPort. Notably, the HDMI port is limited to 240Hz at 1080p, while the DisplayPort enables the full 600Hz refresh rate. Given its specifications and Acer's press release, the Nitro XV250 F6 is aimed directly at competitive gamers who aren't too fussed with image clarity and just want the highest framerate they possibly can.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has announced that Fortnite will return to the US-based iOS App Store next week, with the Unreal Engine creator also putting forward a "peace proposal" to Apple at the same time.

Sweeney posted on X, saying: "We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week. Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic".

This comment was in a reply to a post on X a couple of hours ago, where Sweeney said: "NO FEES on web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax. Apple's 15-30% junk fees are now just as dead here in the United States of America as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. Unlawful here, unlawful there. 4 years 4 months 17 days".

As part of its Q3 2024 earnings call, Remedy Entertainment shared some optimistic updates on the status of Control 2 and the Max Payne 1-2 remakes.

While speaking to investors, Remedy highlighted that "Max Payne 1 + 2 Remakes is [all the time] making good progress in the production phase."

The project, initially announced in 2022, has been the subject of relatively transparent discussions in investor meetings. Last year, Remedy confirmed that the project passed the proof-of-concept phase in April and "production readiness" in October. Fast-forward to May 2025, and the project remains aligned with early timelines, officially entering full production as of April last year.

After a month of early access, developer Netmarble has announced that Game of Thrones: Kingsroad will be free-to-play and available on PC and mobile devices come May 21.

The open-world RPG is set during season 4 of HBO's hit TV series, featuring familiar characters such as Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister, and Ramsay Bolton. The game also features the TV actors' likeness, and fleshed-out versions of its iconic locations like Castle Black and Winterfell.

While Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is primarily a single-player experience, the game features online co-op features and monetization mechanics. Steam reviews currently sit at 'Mixed' over 1000 reviews, praising the game's writing, tone, and character customization, while lambasting the game's aggressive pay-to-win features.

id Software's DOOM: The Dark Ages launches May 13 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. The PC version is set to go all-in on the latest RTX technologies, with full Path Tracing and support for DLSS 4, including multi-frame generation. It's a ray-tracing-only game that uses RT for accurate hit detection, which ramps up the combat.

The Path Tracing or Full Ray Tracing in DOOM: The Dark Ages ensures that it covers everything from shadows to reflections and global illumination. This is then paired with DLSS 4's new AI model for Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction to enhance image quality and Multi Frame Generation and Reflex to boost performance while maintaining responsive controls.

For the absolute maxed-out 4K path-traced DOOM experience, you will need a pretty powerful GeForce RTX 50 Series GPU. NVIDIA confirms that running on a GeForce RTX 5090 in 4K with Ultra Settings, Path Tracing, and Multi-Frame Generation (4X) will give you 210 FPS.

Gearbox has just wrapped up the Borderlands 4 reveal with PlayStation in a recent State of Play live stream that showcased many new aspects of the upcoming game, such as the game's new loot, movement, new characters, mechanics, and story teasers.

The 20-minute presentation began with a short gameplay teaser trailer that reveals players will be able to take advantage of new movement mechanics, such as gliding to traverse long distances. Gearbox says players will also be able to dash, double jump, climb, and point grapple, all of which have been designed to increase the amount of fun players will have in combat, and also speed up the time it takes to move around the world.

Another addition to Borderlands 4 that makes moving around the world easier is Silos, which when grappled take players up to extreme heights and let them glide down. Two new vault hunters are available: Rafa, an exosuit soldier, and a siren called Vex, who can summon a phantom called Trouble to assist in combat through various customizable elemental attacks.

The MSI Claw 8 AI+ and MSI Claw 7 AI+ PC gaming handhelds stand out as they are powered by Intel Core Ultra 200V chips with integrated Arc Battlemage graphics, aka Lunar Lake. As part of recent driver updates (Intel graphics driver 32.0.101.6734 and newer), now available for MSI Claw handhelds, owners can expect a free 10% boost to gaming performance with significantly better 1% low performance.

This is important because a high 1% low figure indicates that you're getting smooth and consistent performance. Intel has provided a benchmark chart showcasing 1080p Medium performance on MSI Claw handhelds in 17W mode across a wide range of games, and the results are impressive.

"In testing this update across 9 games on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ in the Manual 17W profile, players can expect higher average GPU frequency and improved frame pacing, which translates to significant uplifts in not only average FPS but also in 1% low FPS, also called the 99th percentile," Intel writes. "What this all means is we're improving not only performance but also smoothness for a great gaming experience."

EA founder Trip Hawkins has laid out some predictions and thoughts about the Nintendo Switch 2 and the future of next-gen hardware in a Medium blog post.

Nintendo is gearing up for the Switch 2's release in June, and forecasts indicate there could be up to 20 million Switch 2 consoles produced in the first year. The successor is also expected to potentially ship as many as 8 million units at launch. Everyone is talking about the Switch 2, even industry figures from a long-ago era like EA and 3DO founder Trip Hawkins.

In a recent blog post, Hawkins laid out his predictions for the Switch 2, and they're quite straightforward: The Switch 2 will break 100 million sales in its lifespan.

The PC Gaming Show has officially announced its return, arriving June 8 to showcase over 50 games from publishers including Ubisoft and Devolver Digital.

The show was first established during E3 2015, and has steadily grown in popularity, reaching over 76 million viewers as of last summer. As of 2025, the show will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. Some of its most notable reveals during this span included XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, which was revealed in 2017. Satisfactory, which was revealed in 2018. As well as Wartales, which was showcased in 2021.

Ubisoft is slated to be the feature guest of the PC Gaming Show, with rumours suggesting that the publisher could show off Anno 117: Pax Romana, an RTS title set in the Roman Empire. Hardcore Gamer also speculates that we could see the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003), or the sequel to Beyond Good & Evil (2003) - however, the status of these projects currently remains up in the air.

Xbox gaming hardware revenues are down year-over-year for the fifth consecutive quarter in a row.

Microsoft's Q3 FY25 results are up, and Xbox delivered a new all-time high of $5.721 billion revenue during the quarter. While total earnings were up +5%, Xbox hardware earnings are down once again, this time decreasing by -6% year-over-year. Xbox made an estimated $329 million from hardware in the quarter, which includes Xbox consoles and accessories. With these results, Q3'25 represents the fifth straight quarter in a row of Xbox hardware revenue declines on a year-over-year comparable basis.

It's also the lowest hardware revenue of the Xbox Series X/S generation of consoles (Q3'24 had previously been the lowest at $347 million), and at just $329 million out of $5,721 million, hardware made up 6% of total quarterly revenues.